STL - Silent State

STL - Silent State
Are you feeling down? That outing to Bar 25 was pretty rough, huh? Well, Stephan Laubner, AKA STL, may very well be the man to lift your spirits: His latest offering is that rare case of a dance floor healer. Driven by a positively forward-marching snare drum, "Silent State" fuses vivacious synths to drony melodies, creating an atmosphere which is awash in a kind of sentimental lucidity. Endlessly looping through the night, this jewel is bound to find a place in the pantheon of light-hearted and laid-back techno anthems—side-by-side with classics like Kenny Larkin's "Butterflies" or Model 500's "Starlight."

Is this then STL in a nutshell, as its anagrammatical title furthermore suggests? Perhaps. But in light of Laubner's unrelenting high-quality output, one would be hard-pressed to pick such a thing as a quintessential STL track. Ever since his first release on Perlon a decade ago, he's wielded a musical palette that is unique in colouring: An aesthetic of noise and dirt is the common thread to STL's meandering excursions into the old-world territories of deep house and techno. Having released the bulk of his work on his own Something imprint, it's more than noteworthy that STL has furthered his spectrum of labels with Smallville. Quite befitting for the Hamburg-based label, the new 12-inch is dubby at heart: The elegant and spacious B-side cuts "From a Distance" and "Six in a Row" may sound a bit low-key at first, but they handily overtake most of the current dub techno productions on the market these days. Essential release.